


h o o k e d

by lostamongstars



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Heavy Angst, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 18:32:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6090187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostamongstars/pseuds/lostamongstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chat Noir smiled at Marinette. He kissed her long and passionately. Then she died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	h o o k e d

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evil Teddy Bear (TheDragonRider)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonRider/gifts).



> Look at what a single ask meme could do. You can also find this on my ml blog (catnoirism) and my Wattpad (AsiaMoonfield)

> **h o o k e d**
> 
> \+ a/n: so my mind screamed not to do _this because other people have done better_  and I want to keep my hands clean but my fingers flew anyway, unbidden; and it was 2 in the morning when I finally decided to write the goddy prompt out so _please_ excuse me for the typos ~~(if there were any, still)~~
> 
> [@theolims](http://tmblr.co/mMaelPcd8T4-8HGAbvBHX3w) we’re monsters for doing this, aren’t we?

* * *

_**T**_ he akuma introduced herself as the Stringer, dressed in nothing but a white ensemble with elaborate silver and black embroidery on its bodice, with black threads woven on her fingers and neck. She didn’t look harmful at first glance—you’d even think she was some ghost who got the wrong portion of the day, or some foreign cosplayer who got lost on her way to the convention.

But Chat Noir’s puns hadn’t finished halfway when she hooked him to her will with one of her black threads, surprising even Ladybug who had jumped away. Chat had barely shouted in alarm, his mouth frozen in mid-shout. A black thread found its way to the hero’s bell and then around Chat’s neck, and in a second it connected to one of Stringer’s fingers. Chat Noir’s eyes turned pitch black, and when the darkness passed his luminescent green eyes had turned completely white.

Just like the akuma who had corrupted him. “I order you, Chat Noir: chase down Ladybug!”

Chat Noir looked blind, but apparently he could still _see_. He jumped at Ladybug, who managed to dodge and roll out of his way before he pounced on her. Ladybug ran as fast as she could—and Chat Noir followed in strict pursue. The Stringer laughed and jeered—words that Ladybug paid no mind at all—all the while following the trail of her unlimited black thread. Below them, people looked on.

 _Of course_ , Ladybug thought as she jumped from one rooftop to the next. / _He’s as agile as me—we’ve crossed Paris in missions for almost a year._ There’d even been a time that Chat actually developed a bit of abs from their missions. So physically taxing it was, this job, and she ended with a couple nasty injuries herself; but it was all worth it, nonetheless.

 _I am a heroine of Paris_ , she told herself. _I could rescue him, and this Stringer, and send the akuma away. Just like before._

After passing another garbled roof and jumping beside somebody’s chimney, Ladybug began to say, “Lucky Cha—”

Something _very thin_ lassoed her left ankle she even dismissed it as a mere tickle of the wind. Then it _pulled_ and Ladybug’s only way of knowing how she could outwin the akuma turned into a bloodcurdling _scream_. The sensation burned through her ladybug suit, as if a surgeon was trying to cut her foot out right this instant. She didn’t stand a chance from the pain; couldn’t so much as glance if this was Stringer’s or Chat’s. It turned out to the the former, then Chat saw it as a chance and extended his stick into a long pole—

—and swung it aside, straight towards _her_.

She fell face first on somebody’s wall screaming, barely holding on at that apartment’s metal rails. Her vision slapped into vivid red. She could barely see the akuma, even if it was as white as snow and very hard to miss. But Chat—yes, Ladybug could see him just fine, crouched on the rooftop, a cat waiting for the best time to pounce.

She saw the Stringer when the ringing in her ears faded, standing just below Chat Noir’s post. The akuma pulled its pointer finger at her, as if challenging her to go down—and then the thread pulled again at her ankle and she could _swear_ it was sawing its way through the suit.

“Don’t you _dare_ underestimate the power a single, tiny thread could do, Ladybug,” the akuma boasted in a lilting tone. Unlike the past victims, this was someone both her and Chat didn’t know. They had no idea why she’d be akumatized, nor what would be the akumatized item. Ladybug managed to turn her head, swearing once more that her nose and mouth just had leaked out some blood.

“It could bring you down to your knees—heck, maybe even _down here to the ground_!” Stringer pulled harder with a smile, and she fell straight to the ground. She could feel her suit taking the brunt of the impact, but who’s to say she’d end up without a couple bruises? She forced herself to stand, but even her arms didn’t want to take her upper body weight. Around her and the akuma, the townsfolk fled away.

 _Smart choice_. Hopefully she wouldn’t see Alya anywhere here—the situation had already turned dicey and extra leverage for akumas… She didn’t want to imagine it.

The Stringer smiled like a murderer, the pink insignia lighting up around her eyes. “Ah, look at that. You look like a broken doll!” She giggled. “Let my strings hold you in dignity"—She held out her left hand this time and strings flew to her limbs and around her neck, dragging her but setting her upright—"and let me take your Miraculous,” she whispered in her ear. “You’ll still be alive, and so will your partner after I take his Miraculous stone, too! Everyone wins!”

“No one won there,” Ladybug managed. She spat at the concrete, her blood so bright and shining under the sunlight. “No one.”

The Stringer scoffed. “Well then. I’m famous for keeping my work done as fast as I can, you know, in the embroidery business. Still, they said my work didn’t look good enough. That I choose too much black and silver. Don’t they see how beautiful those shades were?” She scoffed again. “They don’t. And for my _brilliant_ ideas, ideas that they have made a fortune all these years, they kicked me out! Their best designer! The best embroidery artist they’d ever have!”

Her voice lowered into a sneer. “They’ve controlled me, played me for a fool, and now I will do the same with my threads. I will make them kneel. And I will finish _this_. Now.”

Ladybug imagined the Stringer smiling, her master puppeteer laughing from a distance. “Chat Noir?”

Chat Noir had stood there, unblinking.

Two worlds was all it took. “Finish her.”

Chat Noir leaped, right hand raised, his white eyes devoid of emotions, screaming: “CATACLYSM!”

His hand landed on her stomach. The darkness bubbled, and the pain on her ankle seemed like a scratched. Chat’s hand burned itself through her suit, her skin, her flesh, but slowly, slowly, as if it had all the time in the world to torture its receiver—none other than Ladybug, his very partner. The dark corruption spread like the plague on her torso, revealing what was hidden, and it hurt, it hurt, it _hurt_ —

 

—and the touch itself was icy cold.

Choking a scream was nonsense anymore so she screamed until her throat had run dry and tears had long since left her. It was a long time. 

 

And the truth was there, as bold as the sun overhead: she was not going to survive through this.

“Chat…” she managed one last time. She couldn’t feel her legs anymore. She couldn’t feel her own body — only her head and her consciousness, and even that seemed to float to the skies like a sole balloon. Her energy weaned faster than she knew, and behind her Stringer’s laugh grew fainter and fainter, and threads seemed to snatch the bottom of her ears.

The reverse transformation began. She turned into regular Marinette, with Tikki knocked out on the pavement. A dying Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

The complete whiteness of Chat’s eyes disappeared just when her vision started to dim, the black threads pulled away. _It… won’t be… the… last…._

Chat Noir’s green eyes were wide, confused, teary. And then he kissed her. It must’ve been a hard kiss—emotional, an apology he didn’t know how to give, a love he’d always wanted to give to her, the guilt he had to bear for the rest of his life…

But she only felt it like a breeze in the summer— _warm, soft, comforting…_

_but weak._

And then darkness took hold, and the rest of the world would sing: 

_Ladybug is dead. And so is Marinette._


End file.
